


A Blunt Instrument

by kateavalanche



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Get Together, Raven's Roost, c'mon Griffin, i love Julia so much, put Julia in the finale, rebellion fic, you guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11685897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateavalanche/pseuds/kateavalanche
Summary: Strength is being able to protect those who need you. Magnus has that in spades. It never stops him worrying, though.(Magnus's backstory in Raven's Roost)





	1. Chapter 1

“This is your home, Magnus. This is Raven’s Roost, and you are so, so happy here…"

Magnus strained to identify the voice. He was sure it belonged to someone he knew - someone important. He just couldn’t figure out who. He squinted, trying to make out some clue through the mist, but it was too dense for anything more than a vague outline. He sensed the speaker drifting away.

“Raven’s Roost? That’s… That doesn’t… Who are you?” he said, without even processing he was doing it. He had had this dream, this conversation, so many times before. It felt more like reciting a script by now. And just like the speaker’s, his own voice sounded distant too. It was bleary and indistinct, and somehow slow and thick in his throat. He tried to reach out to the speaker, but his hand passed through the mist without catching on anything substantial or whole.

“Magnus, I’m sorry. I will never have words for how sorry I am, but this is for the best. I have to fix this. You’ll be safe here, and you’ll be loved.” The speaker - a woman? - paused here, and her voice sounded as if she were on the verge of tears. “I love you, Magnus. I know I don’t deserve it, but someday...someday, I hope you’ll understand, and that you’ll forgive me. For now, just be happy. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

He heard what might have been a sob, but the mist was too close around him, and everything felt heavy, sluggish. Not just the physical world, but in his head, everything seemed slowed too, seemed blurry around the edges, and hard to hold on to for more than a moment. A small part of him understood this, and fought against it, thrashed and screamed like a wild animal trying to escape a trap. But that part grew quieter, more distant, until he slipped into unconsciousness, into blackness and silence.

\---

The air smelled wrong. It smelled like sawdust and wood oil and leather, Magnus thought as he drifted towards consciousness. He blinked sleepily, stretching and letting out a soft, long grumble.

It wasn’t that it smelled _bad_ , he thought. It just wasn’t what he expected. He sat up in bed, the blanket puddled across his lap, and looked around. This was his room, with his clothes folded - sloppily - in the chest like always, and his tools in their roll on the side table like always, and the suns streaming in the window and painting the opposite wall gold like always.

Wait. Just one sun. What kind of world would have two? He felt the beginning of a small smile at the corner of his mouth just thinking about it. Just imagine rainbows from two suns.

The more he oriented himself, the less wrong the scents in the air seemed. He must have just had a really strange dream, is all. One vivid enough to stick with him even after he woke up, leaving ideas about worlds with two suns and air that smelled metallic and cold and strange, sad voices telling him...something. The details were slipping away faster and faster the more he tried to hold on to them.

“Wake up, Mr. Burnsides! You can’t earn your keep if you’re sleeping like the dead!” a voice boomed from the other side of the door, and a rich, warm laugh followed after it.

That was Steven Waxman, the man with whom Magnus owned and ran the Hammer and Tongs, the wood- and metal-working shop downstairs. Magnus remembered liking him instantly when they had first met six years ago. Steven was level-headed and measured in his actions in a way that Magnus had admired, but never really managed in his own life, always rushing in. They worked well together, each balancing the other.

He pulled on his clothes and scrubbed at his face with water from the basin on the table, trying to smooth his thick, curly hair into something resembling neatness.

“Is he still asleep?” another voice drifted up to the hallway as he shut the door behind him and started down the stairs. “Ah, good morning!”

She stood by the landing, a broad, easy smile stretched across her tanned face. Julia, Steven’s daughter, waved to him and stepped into the shop to clear his way.

“Were you talking about me?”

She laughed. “Only that we were surprised you weren’t down here already. The sun’s been up for ages and we’re nearly ready to open. Did you not sleep well?”

Magnus shook his head, feeling a grin on his face to match hers. He had all but forgotten the strange dreams, the solid predictability of reality too much for them to withstand. He set himself to the comfortable, familiar motions of readying the shop for business, pulling on his apron and stuffing his face with the plate of toast set out for him.

“You eat like a bear, you know,” she said, picking up the little stone crock of butter and the dirtied knife. “No one’s going to run up and snatch the food from your hands.”

He inhaled the last bite and feigned a deep, gravelly growl that dissolved into laughter, watching Julia shake her head as she went into the back of the shop. The light from the window caught in her hair, glints of red and copper in with the mahogany brown. Dimly, Magnus heard Steven calling for him to finish his breakfast and get to work.

It was easy to slip back into his routine, to shake off any lingering strangeness of the dream. He’d had to do it a few times over the years he’d lived with the Waxmans. Early on, it seemed like it happened every few days, but gradually, the dreams came less often. Sometimes, it would be the woman’s voice. Sometimes, shrieks of breathless laughter on a beach. Other times, he would wake up gasping for breath, clutching at his throat and face, feeling as if a massive stone slab had replaced his heart and lungs. But the worst ones were the dreams where he tried to save...someone. Friends? Family? From an inescapable darkness that swallowed everything in its path. A shadow too enormous and horrifying to think about any more than he had to.

So he didn’t.

Instead, he focused on the final touches of a keepsake box he was making for a customer. She’d come in the week before, asking for something special for her friend - they’d been apart for a while and she wanted to bring him something when she returned. The entire time, Magnus had tried to place her face, to piece together why she looked so familiar. She had dark, smooth skin and countless silvery braids twisted up in a knot. Something about her expression had seemed so sad, almost heartbroken, even though she had a small, quiet smile the entire time they spoke. Really, everything about her had been odd, down to the white oak staff she carried.

The box was nearly done, with the magic symbols the woman had asked for already carved into the sides and a warm, cherry stain already worked into every inch. All that was left was to add the lining - a velvet the woman had given him to use, precisely the same shade of blue of her dress. Maybe it was her friend’s favorite color? He smiled, picking up a tiny paintbrush and a pot of adhesive, both almost comically delicate in his rough, large hands.

No matter the task, it was always the final steps that were his favorite. Seeing a project through to the very end, putting his heart into it, and knowing that soon it would bring someone some measure of joy, was easily the most satisfying thing Magnus could imagine.

With slow, smooth strokes of the brush, he readied the inside of the box for the lining. He had just eased the fabric in properly when the bell over the front door jangled, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Magnus,” the woman in the doorway said, “Meeting tonight. Joq’s place. Soon as he closes up the smithy for the night.”

She left without another word, jangling the bell again as she closed the door behind her. Ylaine wasn’t ordinarily the type to stick around and chat, but she had seemed even more brusque than usual. The shadows beneath her eyes had seemed darker and broader than before. Magnus felt a knot begin to form in his stomach. He had a suspicion about the topic of the night’s meeting. He hoped he was wrong.

\---

After sending a delivery boy off with the finished keepsake box, Magnus threw himself into work on an order of chairs. The sanding was repetitive and mindless enough to draw him into a sleepy sort of hypnosis while the early afternoon sun came in through the windows, painting the everything gold and lulling him into a comfortable drowsiness as the shop grew warmer. The knot from earlier had all but untwisted itself, and he felt the anxious crease between his brows ease. He felt his hand slowing its motion over the spindle that was to be part of the chair, and his eyelids growing heavier, more difficult to keep up. No harm would come from a moment of rest, a small afternoon nap. He blinked one last time before -

“You’re not going to Joq’s without me this time.”

Magnus sat bolt upright, all drowsiness gone. Inches from his face, staring directly at him, were Julia’s dark brown eyes. Her jaw was set and her brows drawn close in determination, and she did not waver.

“Are you sure?” He had wondered how long it would be before she came to him about this. He’d always known it was coming, but he still didn’t like it. Joq’s meetings were always one wrong word away from being outed, and all of them being taken to the governor’s estate, never to be heard from again. Magnus met her gaze. “I’m a damn fool for going already. You probably shouldn’t be anywhere near any of them. Not tonight, at least. Something feels off.”

She laughed - a short, sharp sound dripping with sarcasm.

“It’ll never be safe. We’re not safe now, sitting here in this shop. The whole point is to make Raven’s Roost safe by finally doing those brave and wonderful things you all talk about doing at Joq’s. I’m going whether you like it or not,” she said before pausing, her face softening a little, “but Magnus? I’d rather you weren’t against it, if I had the choice.”

He set down the spindle and the sander on his workbench, balling his hands up on his knees. When he looked at Julia’s face, he didn’t see any doubt, any hesitation. She had made up her mind, and telling her no to keep her safe would be pointless - he could see that plain as day. Besides, he wasn’t her father, and she was a grown woman who could - and did - make her own choices. Not for the first time, he was struck by her bravery, and her need to do what she thought was right for others, not just for herself. He took her hands in his. They were small, but calloused and strong. She wasn’t a fragile little girl.

“Promise me, once we’re there, that you’ll listen to me if something goes wrong. If we’re found out, and I tell you to run, you do it. There’s no shame in surviving to regroup and continue the work another day.”

“I’ll run if you run,” she said, and the look in her eyes told Magnus she would hear no argument on the matter. She knew full well that he would never run from a fight, and they were too much alike in that.

\---

The streets of Raven’s Roost weren’t exactly empty after dark, but it was a different sort of crowd than when the sun was shining overhead. No families, no children, and no smiles as passers-by.

Magnus frowned, wrapping his hand around Julia’s and holding it tight. That his home had come to this - it opened up a pit in the bottom of his stomach, made his chest go tight. What they were doing was the right thing. At least, he hoped so.

As they rounded a corner near the end of the Craftsmen’s Corridor, the dim window of Joq’s shop came into view. He felt Julia’s hand squeeze his, but her face was in shadow beneath her hood, so he couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or anxiety.

They slipped in through the side door, their breathing measured and their steps soft as cats. It wasn’t until they hit the landing at the bottom of the staircase that Magnus got a good look at Julia’s face, illuminated by torchlight. There was a small, fierce smile on her lips, and he would swear he could feel the thundering of her heartbeat in the pulse in her wrist. Or maybe that was his own he was feeling.

“You ready?” he said.

She nodded, that small smile broadening and the tense line between her brows smoothing out. He opened his mouth, about to offer her a final out - secretly hoping she would take it - before a massive hand clapped him on the back, snapping his attention away.

“Magnus! Who’s this lady friend you’ve brought? She’s - ah, Julia!” Joq pulled them both into a crushing embrace, his smile nearly feral in its wide-stretched enthusiasm and gleaming brilliance.

Joq was a farrier, and an enormous house of a man. Bombastic and welcoming and warm, but much cleverer than he liked to let on, he was the unofficial head of their efforts, and the host of the night’s meeting.

“Find me at the end of the night, will you? I’ve got something important to talk over with you,” he said, his eyes intense and fixed on Magnus. Then, in an instant, he was back to his light hearted grin and peeled off to greet more newcomers.

Eventually, the storage room filled up. There were people from all over Raven’s Roost, not just the Craftsmen’s Corridor. Word of their effort had spread, and there were people from the Artisan’s Alley, the Market Square, the Rookery, everywhere. On the one hand, more support meant a better chance of success against the soldiers. On the other...the more people who knew a secret, the more likely the wrong person was to find out. Magnus shifted his weight from one foot to the other and moved to crack the joints of his fingers, only to notice Julia’s hand still entwined tightly with his. She looked up at him curiously, and he felt a sudden flop in his stomach.

Ylaine appeared at the front of the room, her short, black hair in her face and her mouth set in a tight line. She rapped her knuckles sharply on a wooden block, calling the meeting to order. The room fell silent, dozens of pairs of eyes fixed on her.

The first twenty minutes or so were taken up bringing the newcomers up to speed. Raven’s Roost had had enough. Their governor, Kalen, had made so many promises, had seemed to herald a better, brighter future for their little town in the sky, but every one of those promises had been broken. Instead, he had grown paranoid and controlling, distancing himself from those around him who had supported and advised him. He was drawing power inward towards himself and lashing out at those who defied him. He had dismissed the town guard, all of whom had been loyal to the people for years. Overnight, he had replaced them all with hired soldiers from a faraway country - people who fought for gold only, and had no loyalty or love for Raven’s Roost or its citizens. Entire families were vanishing after voicing objections, and some had been seen being taken in the night, stolen away to the governor’s estate, presumably to be thrown in the cells beneath the manor.

What they had lacked before was a solid plan of action. So far, it had been defensive - looking after those most at-risk from Governor Kalen’s policies, helping them escape if necessary. It was unsustainable, though. It seemed that every week, he chose a new group to target in a desperate bid to cling to every scrap of power he had. What Kalen had in thoughtless, mindless cruelty, he lacked in foresight. The more people you turn against, the more people turn against you. By now, the only ones who didn’t want him gone were the soldiers he paid handsomely to carry out his wishes.

This was the point of the night’s meeting, Ylaine told them. The soldiers weren’t from Raven’s Roost. They didn’t know its secrets, didn’t understand it in the way that the people who grew up here did. With enough support from enough townspeople, Ylaine and Joq were confident Kalen could be ousted. Here, Ylaine gestured to her husband, who stepped to the forefront. His usual enthusiasm was there, but it felt sharper, keener, honed like a blade.

“I’m glad to see people from all over our town here tonight,” Joq began, his eyes seeking out the heads of each group with an approving gleam. “We will need all of you for what’s to come. You see - ”

There was a deafening blast from above, and a support beam in the ceiling collapsed, raining dust and shards of wood on everyone below. There were screams and the sounds of heavy boots and sharp, shouted orders as everyone who could run did.

There were three hidden ways out of the storage room, and people scattered like rats in an effort to escape from the soldiers who had discovered their meeting place.

Everything slowed for Magnus. He looked around at the scene. The beam had fallen near him, pinning two beneath it - an elf woman and a human man. He was there in an instant, lifting it off of them. And there was Julia, pulling them from beneath it as soon as he had created a gap. Their eyes met for a moment, and they nodded, understanding the other without a word. Once the elf and human were out and standing, Magnus pulled Julia out of the room and they herded the stragglers along a series of tunnels carved into the stone foundations of the town, far from Joq and Ylaine’s smithy and the soldiers who had descended upon it.

Julia was the more familiar with the tunnel system, having played in it for years as a child. She was sure-footed and confident, leading the group with her hair streaming out behind her and her voice low but reassuring. Magnus brought up the rear, making sure no one was left behind or lost. If someone stumbled, he was there in an instant to steady them, to keep the group going and keep them all safe. Something about this - running from danger in the darkness - felt horribly familiar, but he pushed the thought away. There wasn’t time to analyze that when he had a task at hand.

Once they had put enough distance between them and the soldiers, leading the members of their group back to the entrances nearest their homes, the enormity of what had just happened struck them. They had made it out, but Joq and Ylaine were as good as dead.

Kalen knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I bumped up the chapter count, as this is definitely going to take more than three chapters to tell the story I want to tell.

Steven was sitting at the counter of the shop when Magnus and Julia opened the door and slipped inside. Judging by the pattern of dark rings on its surface, he had been there long enough to go through several mugs of tea. His face was dark and thunderous, and the line of his shoulders tight and taut, like an overwound clock spring.

Julia blanched beside him, but did not shrink back.

“Papa, we - ”

“You should have brought me in too,” Steven said, his voice low and even. His eyes were focused intently on the two of them, a spark of fury in the brown so dark it was nearly black. “I have every bit as much stake in this as you. This is my home. Those are my friends, my people.”

Magnus nodded slowly. The mention of friends dug the pit in his stomach even deeper. He swallowed and returned Steven’s gaze. “There was a raid. Joq and Ylaine are gone.”

Julia let out a shaky breath next to him. He could see from her face that she hadn’t processed it yet, hadn’t allowed herself to think about it before they were safe. Steven looked at the two of them, and to Magnus, it seemed as if the fight had gone out of the man. His shoulders slumped, and his hands were balled loosely in his lap. His head dropped, just for a moment, before he stood bolt upright, and the spark in his eyes had caught like wildfire. Every muscle in his body seemed an instant away from something violent.

“Upstairs. Now.”

The two of them followed after him in silence. The very act of breathing, of setting one foot in front of the other, of their hearts beating, seemed so deafening, they didn’t dare make any other sound until the soft click of Steven’s door latching shut behind them.

Magnus drew in a breath, readying himself for the lecture he was certain was coming. “I put the two of us in danger, and I apo - ”

“Stop,” Steven said, cutting him off sharply. “Julia is a grown woman, and can make her own decisions. You didn’t put her in anything.”

Magnus nodded. So much for taking the blame on himself.

“And Julia,” he continued, “you should have told me. I wouldn’t have stopped you from going. But you could live to be a thousand years old, and I would still worry about you, because I am your father, and I don’t know how not to worry. If I had been there with you, I could have helped. I could have done...something.”

He looked a little lost, sitting on the edge of his bed, shifting his gaze between his daughter and the man who had come to be like a son in the years since coming to them.

Julia cleared her throat, and even in the dim light, Magnus could see that her eyes were bright and glassy. She shook her head. “I should have told you, yes. But I don’t know if there was anything you could have done. It was all we could manage to get most of them out and through the tunnels. There just wasn’t time.”

She trailed off at the end, staring intently at nothing and blinking away tears that threatened to spill over. Without thinking, Magnus reached out a hand to her, but he was startled by the strength with which she grabbed his. Her knuckles went white, and he could feel faint tremors that were echoed in her shaky breathing.

Steven’s eyes followed the motion, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he stood up, clapped a hand on each of their shoulders, and said, “They’ll need a new leader. It needs to be quick, seamless. Someone they respect and trust. Someone who can slip beneath the notice of Kalen until the time comes, but who’ll have the support of the people. Sound like anyone we know?”

“Jules.”

The name had slipped from Magnus’s lips without his even thinking about it. Of course, it should be Julia. He felt her fingers tighten their hold on his hand, almost painfully so.

“Why me?”

He smiled - it felt fragile and brittle on his face after everything that had happened that night, but this seemed right. It made sense.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “I want to do whatever I can. But I’ve been on the fringes of this, periphery mostly. Little things. And I - ”

Steven watched silently as she spoke, as she gestured with her free hand when words failed her, and the laugh lines around his eyes grew deeper as he grinned at his daughter. “They trust you, Jules. Most of this town has known you since you were born. And from what you and Magnus have said, it seems to me that most of them owe you their lives after tonight.”

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” Magnus said. He could see the stress of the night wearing her down - could feel it doing the same to him. Heaping a decision like this on top of that would be unkind. Instead, he said, “There’s nothing that has to happen tonight. We should all try to sleep, and we can get in touch with the group in the morning.”

She nodded, and Steven let out a yawn that drove home how late it had gotten. The man opened his door and gently shooed them out, closing the door behind them. As it clicked shut, the two of them heard another long, rolling yawn from Steven.

The hall was dark, with only faint light coming in through the windows in their bedrooms. Julia was just a vague shape in front of him, save for the warmth of her hand in his. It struck Magnus how much of the night he had spent like this, and how natural it felt. They stood outside her door in silence, and he unwound his fingers from hers, assuming she would do the same and go inside.

“Don’t.”

Her voice was soft enough that he thought he might have imagined it. Then, he heard her take a step, and felt her wrap her arms around him, burying her face against his shoulder.

“Jules? Are you alright?”

She shook her head. Her voice was muffled against him. “No. Later, probably, but not yet. Could you…” she trailed off, but tugged him gently towards her door. “I don’t want to be alone with just my thoughts.”

“Of course,” he said. His voice came out even, but inside, he could feel his heart beating erratically. “Just like old times.”

He closed the door behind them, thinking how this was anything but “like old times”. In the weeks after he had shown up in Raven’s Roost, his memory full of more holes than swiss cheese and his dreams full of half-formed horrors, he hadn’t slept much. Julia had been the first to figure it out, and had offered to sit with him one night until they fell asleep against each other’s shoulders, heads lolling gently towards each other.

That had been the first full night of sleep he’d had in months.

After that, it became an unspoken arrangement. She had pulled his mattress into her room, and more often than not, they would wake up with an arm stretched out towards the other, hands clasped tight.

Tonight, his mattress was still in his own room. Julia hadn’t shown any indication she wanted him to go get it, instead going straight to her own bed and tumbling in without a word. She slid to the far side, leaving a gap clearly meant for him.

The bed gave a creak of protest as he shifted his weight onto it. He gave Julia a worried look, hoping it wouldn’t break beneath the weight of two grown adults. Her eyes were already closed, and much of the anxiety had already left her face. As soon as he was stretched out on the bed, she threw an arm across him and curled against his side. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and settled in, closing his eyes and hoping the thunder of his heartbeat was less audible to her than it was to him.

\---

“Magnus,” a soft voice called to him, “Magnus, wake up.”

It wasn’t the woman from his dreams, but the voice was familiar. He blinked drowsily, trying to shake off the pleasant, lethargic warmth of sleep.

“You are a thousand degrees,” the voice whispered, and Magnus’s eyes shot open.

Julia.

They had shifted in the night, and his arms were wound snugly around her waist, her back flush against his chest and her head tucked into the hollow of his neck. Their legs were tangled together, and she was absolutely right. It was entirely too warm all of a sudden.

He unwound his arms and pushed himself back to the edge of the bed, his feet tangling in the sheets as he went. He felt his face turn beet red as he watched her burst into laughter, stifling it behind a hand.

“You look like a skittish cat,” she said between gasps of laughter. She was trying to stay quiet, but was only half successful.

For a moment, with her hair in wild curls backlit by the morning sun and her face rosy-cheeked with laughter, she looked...happy. Perfectly happy. Magnus was vaguely aware of the sounds of the world waking up outside their little room, but in that moment, all he could focus on was the desire to make sure she could stay like this for as long as he could manage. He felt the bright, focused heat of embarrassment fading from his cheeks, only to be replaced by a softer warmth in his chest.

Julia arranged herself cross-legged on one end of the bed, her hands neatly folded in her lap. Magnus found himself mirroring her pose as she smiled with a sort of wild, almost feral gleam in her eyes.

“I’ve decided. I don’t want to lead this fight,” she said, and her smile grew wider. “Not by myself, at least. Magnus, I want you there with me. Joq and Ylaine - they… They worked together. They led us together, as a team, and that’s what I want. The people of Raven’s Roost know and trust me, but they trust you too. And I - well, it should be pretty obvious how I feel about you.”

She glanced down at her lap, fidgeting with her hands. There was a pause that hung in the air, and her gaze flicked back up to meet his as she waited for him to say something.

“Well?”

In spite of the seriousness of their situation, in spite of the events of the night before, the fear and uncertainty and the threat of violence looming over them, Magnus felt his mouth tug up in a smile to match hers. He nodded, and Julia’s face lit up like the sun. She pitched herself forward and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug so tight it nearly winded him. Her cheek was pressed against his, and her lips were not even an inch from his ear. Softly, he heard her breath a sigh of relief and say, “Thank you. I wouldn’t have wanted to do this alone.”

“True strength is knowing when to ask for help.” The words had come unbidden, and try as he might, Magnus couldn’t quite remember where he had heard them before.

\---

Julia had organized the delivery boys for the Hammer and Tongs, sending them off with parcels for the leaders of Artisan’s Alley, the Market Square, the Rookery, all the major players in their effort to free Raven’s Roost. In the parcels were wooden puzzle boxes containing coded messages on where and when the next meeting was to take place. To the untrained eye, the messages would simply look like well-wishes for the upcoming Candlenights season. She wanted to leave nothing to chance.

The sun was dipping below the spires of the town, people were taking care of last-minute errands before heading home for the night, and Magnus was a nervous wreck.

It had been nearly a week since the meeting when the soldiers had come, and there had been no word on Joq and Ylaine’s fate. That, by itself, wasn’t unusual. Having heard anything would have been the more bizarre thing. No, what was unusual - and was twisting his guts in a knot - was Julia’s plan.

She had woken him up with a poke in the stomach and a wild grin, and the words, “I have an idea.” In all the years he had known her, nothing good had ever come after those four words.

“We’re going to rescue them.”

“Who?” he had said, still muzzy with sleep.

“Joq and Ylaine. We’re going to break into the governor’s estate and get them out. They can give us intel about the workings of the estate and we can finally end this.”

That had woken him up. He had sat bolt upright, pulling Julia up with him as his hands wrapped around her shoulders.

“No. Not a chance, no. We don’t - ” he had spluttered the words out, his mind racing for an argument to deter her from this. “There’s no way to know if they’re dead or alive, or what’s waiting for us, or if he has magic users or traps or hungry, wild dogs! There could be anything down there and then we would be gone too.” He paused to draw in a shallow breath. “You would be gone too.”

She shook her head, her grin much smaller, but still there. “I’m putting it to a vote tonight.”

So his efforts were for nothing, and the sun was still going down, and Julia was still planning to risk her life on a mission that all but guaranteed failure. It was no wonder Magnus hadn’t managed to focus on anything for the entire day.

A knock sounded from further in the shop, and he looked up to see Julia, her knuckles still resting on the doorjamb where she had rapped to get his attention.

“Ready to go?” she asked, and he could see the unspoken concern in her expression. Concern that he might be upset with her? That he had been anxious all day? He couldn’t tell.

He set down the block of oak he had been whittling to distract himself and brushed the curls of wood from his clothes. He tried for a smile, hoping it didn’t look more like a grimace. “As I’ll ever be.”

She stretched out her hand to him, and they started down the storage room stairs to the tunnels, and onward to the meeting place.

\---

The energy of the meeting was strange. Ordinarily, it felt exciting in a clandestine way, like knowing a secret as a child, feeling as if it would burst out of your chest at any moment. This time, the reality of their situation was too close, too fresh. Gone was the friendly chatter that usually hummed at the beginning, and in its place, a tense, quiet sort of murmuring. Dozens of faces, wreathed in gloom in this subterranean hall, faced Julia and Magnus expectantly.

The torches on the walls threw erratic light lapping across faces and painted Julia golden as she spoke. The light tangled in her wild curls and turned her eyes the color of sunlight passing through whisky. Her voice was soft, but the intensity of it carried her words across the room, silent and rapt.

She spoke of the future she envisioned, happy and safe and prosperous - of a life where she could see the children of everyone in the room running and playing as freely as she remembered doing years before Kalen had come. Of children of her own having that same opportunity. At that, Magnus felt something tighten in his chest, but there was no time to wonder what it could be. Julia continued, speaking of Joq and Ylaine, of their hopes and plans for Raven’s Roost once they had freed it from Governor Kalen.

“They are our friends. They were our leaders in this fight. What good is this fight if it doesn’t serve to protect those who are dear to us?” She paused, locking eyes with Magnus. “I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t accept the losses we’ve already taken. I won’t tell anyone that they have to come with me. All I can do is ask. Please. Please, help me in this. Help me bring back our friends, and then help me take back our home.”

There was a moment of silence that felt impossibly full. A silence stuffed to bursting with potential, and when that potential was realized, it seemed as if the entire room spoke in one voice that yes, they would go with her. They would follow where she led, they would save those who had been lost, and reclaim that which had been taken. There was a tangible swell of hope that swept them up, inspired these brave, frightened, trusting people.

A part of Magnus had known it would come to this. All he could do was prepare as well as he was able.


End file.
